Bang & Olufsen's first soundbar supports Dolby Atmos and AirPlay 2 systems

Bang & Olufsen's sleek soundbar, due out this fall, comes with 11 power-driven drivers, Dolby Atmos, AirPlay 2 and integrated Chromecast support, plus eye-catching design and (of course) exorbitant price.

Bang & Olufsen unveiled the Beosound Stage soundbar – a first for the legendary Danish consumer electronics manufacturer – on Sunday, a few days from IFA in Berlin.

Measuring 43 x 6.7 x 3 inches and encased in an aluminum or smoked oak wood frame, the Beosound Stage has a total of 11 riders, including four woofers, four mid-range drivers and four tweeters, each powered by their own 50 watt amplifiers.

Due to the "superbly deep" sound provided by its four woofers, the Beosound Stage does not need a subwoofer, says Bang & Olufsen.

Bang & Olufsen

The soundbar provides 3D audio quality based on objects thanks to Dolby Atmos support. You can also stream video and audio via AirPlay 2, Bluetooth, or Chromecast built-in. You can also use the Beosound Stage in a multi-room audio setup with support for Bang & Olufsen's BeoLink Multiroom platform.

The Beosound Stage connects to your TV via its HDMI ARC port, which allows you to connect your video sources directly to your device while returning audio to the soundbar using the supplied HDMI cable. . Of course, the disadvantage of an HDMI ARC configuration is that it does not support lossless audio via Dolby TrueHD, which means you'll have to settle for lossy audio for audio Standard 2D and Dolby Atmos encoded audio.

It should also be noted that the Beosound Stage does not have an integrated digital assistant such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, a feature we see more and more in the soundbars, especially the more expensive ones.

Speaking of expensive, the Beosound Stage should land with an exorbitant price of $ 1,750 (according to Engadget), or a whopping $ 2,600 if you opt for the smoked oak frame version.

That's almost $ 1,000 more than our current top-of-the-line bar choice, the Denon HEOS HomeCinema HS2, although it does not make sense to see that we see a lot of new bars coming up north of the $ 1,500 mark.